Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Well it's here friends, the first look at the the final installment of the Harry Potter movies. Trully the end of an era. In its infinite greed, Hollywood has decided to stretch the end of that era over an 8 month period, but whatevs.

This is the trailer for the two part "Deathly Hallows" film. I wasn't crazy about the film version of the "Half Blood Prince" - the whole thing felt rushed and flat. Since the book version of "Deathly Hallows" touched my soul, I hope they shapen up for the last go 'round. Judging by the insanely over the top operatic music in the background here, I think we're off to a good start.

Monday, June 28, 2010

Check it out: Brazilian soccer nickname generator! Mine is either "Mallinhosa" or "Elizabeto," depending if I go by Liz or Elizabeth. I think I'll take "Mallinhosa." Either way, it beats this guy's nickname.

Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Party people!!! So right this very second, I am drinking this not very photogenic beer. It's called Saisondu BUFF and it's created by dudes from Stone + Dogfish Head + Victory! I think we can all agree that automatically makes it delicious. Pick one up in your local cheese/fancy beer shop (oh, you don't have one of those in your charming little town? Sucks to be you! Move to Williamsburg where the cool kids live! (seriously, please move here...I have no friends)).

Anyway, this beer is lovely and very summery and warms my heart because it unites us Stone lovers with you Dogfish Headers. I recommend.

Friday, June 18, 2010

All this World Cup broohaha has got me wondering: Why don’t we have hooligans in the United States? Not soccer hooligans, obviously. We barely have soccer. But sports hooligans in general?

Movies and the Internet have taught me that in other countries, especially England, every soccer team has a “firm” of hooligans who get into fights with opposition fans. The US has nothing like this. Raider fans are close, but that’s just one team, and they’re not exactly organized, not the way these hooligan firms are.

I’m really kind of fascinated by this. Here are my theories:- We’ve got the guns: You don’t see that much brawling in the US because there is always the fear someone’s gonna have a gun and turn a harmless barroom punchup into a massacre.

- We have more than one sport: Soccer is king in most other countries. The US has football, baseball, basketball and hockey to divide our attentions. Having different outlets for fandom keeps the crazy in check.

- Teams are more spread out: The city of London has dozens of pro soccer clubs, including five in the Premiership. This means the fans are rubbing up against one another. Imagine if the Red Sox and Yankees played in the same town.

- We pretend we don’t have a class system: In many cities around the world with more than one club, it’ll be decided that one club is for posh people, another for the proletariat; one is for Protestants, the other for Catholics, etc. The teams are therefore an even greater extension of your identity. In the US, people don’t proudly cling to their class. If anything, it’s the opposite: If you’re rich, you’d want to root for the working class team to prove you’re not a snob. If you’re poor, you’d want to be associated with the perceived team of wealth.

That’s all I can come up with, what do you guys think? Also, do you think its changing in the US? Lakers fans rioted after the win last night, and I may or may not have participated in sports riots after big wins by the Red Sox and Patriots in the last ten years. Maybe we won’t be hooligan free for long.

Wednesday, June 16, 2010

How have I not talked about the World Cup yet? I love the World Cup, but in an American-who-knows-very-little-about-soccer kind of way. Here are my Raves about the WC thus far. (And for you haters, stay tuned to the end. I do have a few jeers).

- No ads during games: Having grown up watching American sports that go to commercial every time a player sneezes, I love, love, LOVE watching a game that just goes for 45 minutes at a time. And unlike regular club soccer, most of the players don’t have ads on their shirts during the World Cup.

- Rad Jerseys: Speaking of the players shirts … there is just something so cool about soccer jerseys. This year, my favs are Slovenia, Denmark, Portugal, Spain and France. Sadly, the US jerseys make them look like they’re wearing pageant sashes. Dislike.

- Not banning vuvuzelas: I find the “swarm of bees” sound created by the incessant blowing of vuvuzela horns as annoying as the next non-African, but I’m still glad FIFA hasn't banned them from the stadiums. South Africa has had a rough go of it over the years, and hosting the World Cup is a great celebration for them. Let them party as they see fit.

- Hot soccer players: You knew you weren’t getting through a Gingers is the Watchword post without mention of good looking boyzz! It really does boggle my mind how so many soccer players are just drop dead gorgeous. Why is that? I know they’re all in terrific shape and all that, but so are football, basketball and hockey players, and I don’t find nearly as many of them attractive. Maybe its because they don’t have helmet hair. I'd give specific examples of hotties, but I have no idea who any of these people are.

Hi Steven Gerrard, hiiii!

- Keeps my mind off the Celtics and Red Sox: My basketball team got destroyed in game 6 of the finals last night and is limping into a game 7 on the road against the hated Lakers. My baseball team is 4 games back of two teams that show no signs of slowing down this summer. I need a sports distraction, and this odd little game where you can’t use your hands is just the ticket.

Jeers

OK, there are a few things that bug me about the World Cup ...

- Stoppage time: In soccer, instead of just stopping the clock, the refs keep track of how long play stopped, and tack it on at the end. You never know how much it’ll be until the end of 90 minutes. And sometimes, even if the refs say its 4 minutes extra, they’ll let play continue for 4 minutes and 27 seconds, just to keep things interesting. This drives me batty. Just stop the clock!

- Americans calling it football: I know some people who are trying to seem worldly this month by calling soccer “football.” Listen, we have different words for a lot of things. For example, the Brits call cookies “biscuits,” apartments “flats” and bathrooms “toilets.” Other countries have completely different languages, with different words for everything! Does it make more sense that a sport in which a ball is kicked with a foot is called “football,” as opposed to a sport where the ball is thrown and caught with the hands? Sure. But what’s done is done. In America, we drive on the right hand side of the road, and we call it soccer. This doesn’t make us ignorant or stupid. Just different. And as we all learned in kindergarten, different is OK.

Flopping: The fake injury situation is out of control. You’re trying to win the World Cup lads, not an Oscar.

Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Due to the immense popularity of my Facebook status updates quoting my mom during my cross country drive, I've started a new Tumblr of quotes and thoughts from my new life in Virginia. I'm trying to post one a day. Check it out and let me know what you think!

Friday, June 11, 2010

Hi guys! How're things? Did ya miss me? The Padres certainly did and are now a game out of first place in the NL West. All good things and whatnot.

Anyway, the point is me! I made it to Virginia. I knew this state and I would get along when my mom and I drove through Draper, VA.Williamsburg is lovely and has just about everything a girl could want. I found an apartment and the Trader Joe's and the Chipoltle (these things are important) and I'll start work on Monday. Tonight, I'll drive about an hour to hang out with our old pal, Garney. It's all happening.

So, um yeah. Just wanted to check in and say hi. My eyes have gazed upon a few things I'd like to share with you, but I forget what they are now. Hopefully, I'll get back into the swing of things next week. For now, have a lovely weekend, get excited for the True Blood season premiere Sunday and watch USA beat England on tomorrow in the World Cup!

Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Man this oil spill is a nightmare. Just a clusterf*ck of epic proportions. I'd always felt bad about it, but now that I've actually been to the Gulf coast (sort of) and heard first hand how much its going to devastate that awesome region - from fishing, to tourism to poor little oil covered pelicans - it really breaks my heart.

As you know, once in a while we like to break out of our shell here at GitW HQ and offer a helping hand to the world at large. If you're interested in lending a hand, here are some things you can do:

- Go down and clean up oil! If you want to volunteer to scrub that stuff, go to OilSpillVolunteers.com. This is only recommended for people who actually live down there.

- BuyDawn. The soap maker is donating $1 of every bottle of dish soap it sells toward cleaning up the spill. Apparently dish soap is very helpful in getting oil off little critters.

- Write angry letters.This one tells the President to pass more wetlands protection legislation, this one calls for a halt to offshore drilling (if you're politically inclined that way).

- Boycott BP. These guys are really just the worst. I know there's a tendency for some people (myself included) to go overboard with the whole, "Blame the corporations!" shtick, but it really does look like there were warning signs on the Deepwater Horizon rig that BP ignored in order to avoid shutting down for a few days because it would have cost them a few million dollars. Because of that, they've lost billions of dollars and destroyed an entire economy and ecosystem. Bravo, lads! Keep in mind, BP brands include Castrol, AmPm and ARCO.

(Note: I stole a lot of these ideas from my former co-worker's blog, and she in turn stole them from US News & World Reports. Gotta give credit where credit is due).

Monday, June 7, 2010

Well she's gone folks. Red left this past weekend for Virginia, where she will wear period clothing and aid and abet the military industrial complex.

She is somewhere in America right now - I'd imagine around Tennessee. Everyone send out your hopes and prayers that she arrives safely and enjoys her new job and home! (Meanwhile, I'll be secretly hoping she hates it so that she'll come home to me. Mmmmwahahahaha!)

Friday, June 4, 2010

OK, here is the deal. We are doing a Yacht Rock Blog Party somewhere in this damn United States of America. It should be in one somebody's home town where they live right now. VA, NY, SD it really does not matter. I will look into the cost of renting a boat and karaoke machine.

Secondly, for those that don't know I am a law school dropout. However, I was just informed via facebook that our year 1 law school fantasy football league from Indiana University, Bloomington is still active. After going Ricky Williams on my JD, the league decided to name the fantasy league trophy after me. However they did not know my middle name starts with a "W" so instead they put "F." So there is now a David F. Harrington Memorial Law School Dropout Awesomeness Fantasy League trophy in existence. Seriously, I almost shed a tear. I also told 'em don't hand that shit over to the Smithsonian until I pass on...posthumous is always more legendary.

Anyways, I thought that was a funny story, but maybe you had to be there. On my facebook. And MALCOLM you wanted more Yacht Rock well here it is, my catalogue is goes deep, Little River Band here we gooooo...

Wednesday, June 2, 2010

Red and Liz are gone on vacation right now in New Orleans. So I'm sitting here late at night listening to my "Ambrosia" station on Pandora.com thinking what to write about.

"That's how much I feeeeel..."

First of all those two chicks better be helping clean BP oil off of beaches, swamps and sickly pelicans. Put down those hurricanes and make sure to scrub under the wings and between the legs ladies!

Seriously for me this BP shit is not funny. My grandparents owned a house along the gulf in Alabama that I used to visit every year. It's a nice area, and what's happening sucks. But as I said before the US is hooked on gas like fucking cigarettes so something like this is the tumor we earned. Or something like that.

"I saw your face and that's the last I've seen of my heeaaaart..."

I've been reading "The Geography of Nowhere" by James Kunstler. Definately worth checking out. It is about how our man-made environment in the United States sucks. We don't have real houses anymore, just a bunch of pre-fab, disbosable, stucco lined shit-holes. No wonder the housing market crashed, it really does suck living in a tract home if you know what a real house that's made to last is like. Check out his blog "ClusterFuck America" at www.kunstler.com

"Hold the line, love isn't always on time, whoa whoa whoa"

OK I'm out, whoever knows who sang the lines to those three songs gets a prize. Hint: They are NOT all Ambrosia.

Wait wait, here comes another one, DAMN YOU DAVID PACK... "I know you're the only woman I've been dreamin offfff..."

Bonus: "And I've got such a long way to go, make it to the border of Mexico...ride like the wind"